


Red Canary

by Anonymous



Category: The Blackout Club (Video Game)
Genre: Bird Death Mention, Bodysharing, Cult dynamics, Dubious Consent, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Manipulation, Hive Mind, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Multi, Rituals, Self-Esteem Issues, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-17 18:54:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29476557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: There is an elation to the inky nonexistence of sleep that you’ve always held close. A respite from the constant companion of your troubles, emotions you never wanted.Redacre didn’t introduce you to that comfort. But Redacre will give it purpose.
Relationships: SPEAK-AS-ONE (The Blackout Club)/Reader
Kudos: 7
Collections: Anonymous





	Red Canary

**Author's Note:**

> The dubious consent tag is there because it is debatable how much one can consent to a voice, but this is written with the intent that all participants are eager and enthusiastic, despite some self-esteem issues. 
> 
> Thank you to my betas and soundboards for their late nights and fanning mutual inspiration, you kick ass!
> 
> Stay safe and mind the tags, now.

Consciousness slams you like a hurricane gust, staggering your stance, knocking your smooth, sure gait into a stumble. With a breath in of damned cold, sharp air, you’re awake. There’s nothing to blink away from your eyes, but you rub at them anyway, ball of a fist grinding roughly, sluggish. Your arm, as the rest of your body, loudly communicates its reluctance to wake.

While you shake off the prickles and regain your footing, your eyes peer at the space surrounding you. White walls. Cables run along the them, some as thin as your pinky, others as thick as your wrist. All shivering slightly at the plucking of hands far, far away. The familiar pattern of smoothed cement rises as the walls curve up to the ceiling, making the room almost egg shaped. How many years did you take, learning this maze, learning what was expected of you? Yet in all that time, you’ve never seen this chamber. Slowly, you shake off the blackout, while the walls take every tiny breath and murmur you make and amplify them back on you.

How strange to be somewhere new.

There’s a small figure in your palm smothered by fingers, you realize as you raise your other hand to rub at your eyes. Those fingers seem reluctant to uncurl and let it at the light, opening slowly. You turn it over, squinting. A wooden figure, the shape of it so familiar. Your jaw locks in disgust. Two arms hang at its sides. Legs, thankfully too small to highlight what you hate about them. A head, but with relief, you turn it to see no face. Its proportions are unmistakable. You draw a thumb over rough twine wrapped around the torso, and turn it to find it tying down a lock of your hair. Reflex draws your other hand up, fingers creeping to find an uneven, butchered spot. But your hair is untouched. And currently much shorter than the piece tied to the wooden doll anyhow.  
A shiver accompanies the realization they’ve had it for a very, very long time.  
  
Approaching footsteps snap you out of your thoughts, a storm on the horizon heralded by the thunder of boots against metal grating. Your head snaps to see a small group of lucids approaching. There’s no denying the anxiety rising, as it digs and evades the dirt you’d like to bury it in.  
Maybe this is the room where they euthanize you. Maybe you did something wrong. Slipped up and let something bad into Redacre. Told the wrong person the wrong thing, blithe and ignorant to your error.  
But you shake your head, physical motion almost enough to throw the worry. Only a suggestion of fear lingers, like a popcorn shell stuck in your gums. You nod an almost-bow to them, and their hands raise as they intercept you. Personal space is a more you’ve started to separate from, but your stomach flips when their hands meet you. They’re gentle, not what you would expect from killers. But still, all so quiet it makes your stomach twist as they walk and pull you further onto the central platform. The wavy mirage blends, blocks out your sight, but the sounds of water parting somewhere near reaches your ears.  
  
The impulse and urge to question why you’ve awoken here is made so much weaker by your fear of being seen as doubtful. So you follow without a word, and the chill of the room starts to set in. A nightgown of sorts drapes over you, another thing you’ve never seen. Far too thin for warmth, but at very least covering you. Before you can linger on it, your eyes flick away to a flash of light. One of the lucids ignites a torch. Paraffin vapors ghost past you, and the ugly chemical smell curls your nose. But now, just ahead, you can clearly see a raised fire pit. The edges are black, marked with scorches. It holds only kindling now.  
  
Their footfalls stop and the silence makes the hairs on your neck stand. All these bodies, and suddenly, not breath out of place, no coughs or sniffles, no scuffs of those boots, nothing.  
Their eyes, all of them, rest on you. Your fist tightens, and reminds you of the figure in your hand.  
Your eyes rest on you. The wooden figure looks so tiny, cradled in your palm. But you think you understand. You bite your lip without thinking, chewing at the inside of your cheek. You place it gently down into the pit, shaping the kindling into a nest.  
And the silence holds. The fire you expect doesn’t come. A few long seconds of waiting, and you turn to look expectantly to the one with the torch. You start to reach out your hand, but another lucid intercepts. They hold something out to you. Something very similar, with two ends to light. It’s heavier than it looks, cold metal that you almost fumble to the floor before getting a proper grasp.  
  
The light in the room grows as you light both ends of the first fire, and the heat reaches your arms, so kindly warming the deep air’s chill away. There’s no hesitation in touching the flame to the kindling. The fire grows and dances against your eyes as you watch enthralled. That tiny wooden figure is engulfed swiftly. The fire is hard to stare into, so bright after the darkness, but you don’t look away, chills shivering down your spine.  
There’s no time to linger at the fire, you learn. The weight in your hands vanishes, and they lead you away, hands on your shoulders, your arms, one even holding your own. With no fire, the air feels even colder and they’re the only protection from it. Their hands turn you, and palms rest flat on your back. The group parts, and you see a bulky metal thing, high as your waist. A kind of lid or hatch or something sits held aloft on little telescopic arms you guess must be hydraulic.  
  
They don’t push you. Hands withdraw, and then those footsteps simply follow your each slow step in time, hovering around and behind you. The fire feels like a distant memory, standing there at the edge of the tank. A strange scent emanates from within, not unpleasant, but pronounced enough that it pulls your face into a pinched expression while you stand and overthink. This has moved so fast, you wonder if you’ll wake up in bed at any moment, all of this some pathetic fantasy. Would they really pick you, out of the whole town?  
Doubts echo in your mind as you look over the lip, revealing a larger space than you would have guessed, inset into the floor, full of water. Built right into the grasping plaster and bone of this sprawling body. As you peer into the tank your face stares back, warping ever so slightly with the motion of the waters. It’s eyes are glazed, calm, when the water doesn’t twist the image too much to make out. Your reflection isn’t the only one watching you. Patiently, languid water carries the subtle motion of someone at the far end of the tank. There is an order to this all, but they are in no rush. So it’s idly that you follow the ripples on the surface until you see her. You can’t help the pang of fear that always comes with finding a person suddenly, in a space you assumed to be empty.  
  
You let that surprised breath out, suddenly feeling fingertips at your back. Soft, pleasant tickles dance over the nape of your neck while the cord of your gown comes undone at their touch. You can’t deny the fear that comes, feeling it loosen. It has nothing to do with your the cold, everything to do with all the parts you can’t help but hate. Parts you can’t stand to see, let alone show someone else.  
Before you can think, your hands are back behind your head, clasping down, trying to make them stop.  
  
And they do. You stare ahead blankly, heart racing. From the far end of the tank, the lucid steps into the red light that peeks over the rim. She is bare, arms open to you.  
Beckoning.  
Your breath regulates, and very slowly you pull your hands away. All you can do is close your eyes and lean your head down forward, feeling the brush of fingertips and shivering. Like they’re gently easing your skin off, fingers delicate but firm in their purpose slip the gown off of you. Still, you can’t help the flutters of panic as they expose shoulders, chest, down to your hips, everything. The scar from 4th grade. The marks you still stare down with bile in your throat. The bruises from being far too clumsy. And then, their hands are gone.  
Your eyes open staring at the floor, but your arms almost move on their own, towards the railings of the tank. You hold your breath as your fingers meet the rails. The ladder is so, so cold, and bites at your skin with an impersonal sting. But you don’t dare draw your foot back or hesitate. Lower, you go into the tank one step at a time. Your feet dip into a pool of hazy, undefined sensation. Some chemical mix brewed special for this occasion, a thin haze hanging just above the surface. Everything it touches tingles pleasantly, and it feels warm against your chilled skin. The water greets you with a hungry familiarity, and soon your feet meet the bottom of the tank.  
  
Only the mist makes you stop, makes your hand raise to your mouth as you cough through it. The taste is difficult to place but the more you breathe in, the more you know it isn’t just water vapor. As to what it is? You don’t know. And it is not your place to ask. There’s an air of gravity and grace the lucid beckoning exudes. While you can’t possibly match it, you breathe in deeply to acclimate, hoping at least to stop the coughing. Shoulder deep, it’s difficult for you to keep your footing and walk to her with the buoyancy of this cocktail.  
The others don’t linger at the edge, looking down on you. You wade towards her slowly, clumsily. All you see is waves of features that move like the stars of the night on lapse. They swirl too fast for you to meet her eyes, not like you did to your own reflection. You just can’t catch up, as your sight flickers from iris to iris to iris, until you’ve gazed a circle around her face. She’s familiar, in the way that all the lucid feel. Constant and safe. In the low light, an eye surfaces for a moment and glints at you, eyelid and lashes that you swear you almost recognize. It could be so many different anyones around town that you know and love. Anyone that you will love deeper, soon.  
  
But all your musing is interrupted by a stumble, righted only by throwing your arms up and out. It feels stupid, and your face burns. Inelegant, not right for what you assume this to be. A hiss makes you jump for a second, tensing, almost losing your footing again. Your eyes look up to see the lid closing. In the very back of your mind, you wonder if that should scare you. Instead of lingering on the thought, you look to her and watch the red light on her face as the shadow lowers and lowers. It shuts with a sound like scissors marrying.  
  
This sheer and utter darkness is nothing like all those nights falling over town, watching it come alive. Down here there are no stars, no lamps or lights aside from what the sleepwalkers carry down with long corded tails. And even those are cut off now, sealed as you are. Even lost in the maze, you’ve never seen such deep darkness. You can’t even tell if your eyes are closed or not.  
  
“This must be a mistake. A dream.” you finally break your silence, a confession you’re ashamed to be sure the watchers hear. The buzz the fog leaves in your head, though, means there’s little anxiety left strong enough to stop the words from spilling. How you made it here, you don’t know- some poor lucid’s head will be on the chopping block for this, you’re sure. The silence recedes as the sound of your breath fills your ears, and you grow all too aware of the pulse of your heart drumming it away. You marinate in your certainly, but the haze takes up all the space dread would normally live.  
  
“No. Take heart.” she says gently, and though her voice is soft, it’s as if she’s blowing a chestful of air through you, clearing your head. Your heart.  
“The Voice makes no mistakes.” her hands meet your shoulders in a motion that you hardly feel, until you shiver a few seconds after contact. The only difference between her hand, the water, and you is that something just under your skin seems to push towards her, glittering where she’s made contact. Though you feel it clearly, the sensation drifts just off of where you expect it.  
“Now lay down.” she instructs, and so you lower with an unseen nod into the water, difficulty working out how to do that. Her hands help you, touch so gentle you only feel the aftershocks of them on your body, all leaving that same strange drifting glitter. And at the edge of those glitters, it seems far more than her own hands hold you. You can hardly feel anything, but something lingers in the tendrils of mist as they rise and brush lovingly up your face, over the flesh of your body still exposed. This can’t be natural, not by the way you swear you can feel slow waves of fingers ghosting over you, shy little hallucinations.  
Your thoughts churn slow as you move together to orient yourself. Finally, you’re stable on your back, just at the surface. Breathing it in. Again you hear the water move, but you don’t quite feel as your partner presses against you. Only after a few seconds delay do you realize the places your bodies meet. Or maybe you moved? You lay side by side now, and find your fingers laced with hers.  
  
You breathe in time, sharing a darkness and intimacy few have known. Drowsy, how much time passes you don’t know. Long enough that you can’t even notice the strange aftertaste of the fog anymore.  
Long enough that your mind wanders. But not to the usual anxieties of your life- not to your mistakes, regrets, everything you can’t take back. Your mind wanders to the thought of the public pool in town. But no, it’s not enough, so you mentally ease the boundaries outward, and now it’s the lake, waves lapping at the shore. Still, not enough. You push and push, until eventually, all you see is an ocean. An ocean surrounded by a sweeping horizon, all cupped within their hands.  
  
Maybe this is all there is. You hold on tighter, hand squeezing hers. And she holds you back. Her hand finds your forearm, and both of you move closer, her arms around you, your head at her chest. Her heartbeat fills your ear.  
Yes. This is all there is.  
  
Until there is just a little more. Breaking the stillness, you can just feel the sweep of breath, muffled sounds as she starts to speak again, gently. The vibrations through her sternum are all you register, words far too soft to understand. Your eyes flutter at the shiver it gives you. But it only confuses you to strain at the echoes.

In the chamber above, the consoles are given last checks, though every tiny piece shines with the gleam of years full with painstaking, thorough cleaning and polishing. Four lucids stand poised at their consoles, bodies taut and ready. The air sits still until a shared but unspoken impulse grabs them all and forty fingers meet love-worn keys. Their fingers move almost without them, reflex hammers tapping up and down a xylophone. Each motion and touch is one of familiarity and worship, undeniable passion for the Song that shakes the platform, the walls, their souls. As much as they play it, it plays them.  
The remaining crowd sits and listens with heads tilted to the ceiling, knees folded neatly beneath them, breathing in time. Those present will hear this section of notes only a handful of times in their life, they know. The fire burns behind them, fed to grow, as the cables sing and carry on and on.  
  
When the playing begins in earnest, the first note that touches you pokes through you like a finger through plastic wrap and makes your heart leap, your stomach turn. The first notes travel through your body just as easily as they cut through the water. She feels it too, though your partner’s reaction is tamed, controlled. Her words waver a moment, and then continue as you shiver and cling tighter. Despite the noise cocooning you, some of her syllables start to piece together, but the meaning is still too foggy. You listen, twisting with the notes, holding on as best you can to her. The vibrations rush through the water and pass through you and into her, through her out to the water, and then to the metal walls that echo them, playing over themselves, meeting in ripples at the surface. And what difference is there between you, the water, her?  
The embrace becomes entanglement, limbs finding each other and slipping into place around each other with ancient familiarity. It’s an awkward dance, but not the same awkward that stumbled you earlier. Skin to skin. Flesh to flesh. She caresses you and you sigh out without meaning to. Even that distinction starts to feel strange, as you anticipate the way she caresses and return the touch. You stop following her motions and instead form them with her, Song feeding your instinct, each vibration touching just a little deeper into you than it ever has. Insistent, her chant continues, the meaning worming it’s way deeper and deeper into you, slipping in riding every note. You whisper back the few words you do catch, more breath than word.  
Up and down were shaken out of you as the playing started, but now perception blurs further as flickers of light in the dark tease you. They start the corner of your eyes, elusive when you try to turn to them. Just out of sight, recoiling at direct contact. You allow them your patience, and they slowly accrete from flutters into larger shapes, ones you recognize as five fingers on a hand, as the gentle slide of a collarbone as a shoulder rolls, as hips that bob as the water bobs you.  
  
You almost have the hang of the words when she pushes you away, and to your horror, your hands push her away too, mirroring. The words you repeat muffle your tiny protesting whimpers, but your heart sinks as the last of her skin brushes off of yours. The flickers become full figures that draw near, encircling and towering over you as their hypnotic motions flow. You can’t ask them what’s happening, with your mouth so full of words you almost understand. You flounder a moment, and the bottom of the tank scrapes your knees, suddenly so much closer. If they drained away some of it, you had no clue.  
The impact of water splashing rocks you, but your fear vanishes as you realize she never left you. No, her hands have already slipped around your head, under your ears, cradling your skull. Thumbs run over your cheekbones, and you find balance, sore knees resting at the bottom of the tank. The sloshing water calms, and then it’s only you, her, the dancers, and the words you share. Words that are finally, finally starting to make sense. You have the rhythm, repetition that almost matches her.  
A hot tap on your cheek makes you jolt. Tears? Yes, your eyes water and you realize you’re crying too. More fall, hot, heavy taps that land on your face, run over her fingers. She leans over you until your lips touch, your head bent back to the sky. But this is no kiss, nothing so common. Speaking against her, against the surface of a mirror, your words finally _finally_ match as you share breath, darkness, closeness.  
  
Like raising your face to the light of a new day, a warmth breaks across your the bridge of your nose with the realization of what the chant means. The warmth is gentle, growing until the heat forces everything that is you to bubble over. You can feel her face pouring over yours, cleansing everything you were. Self froths over the edges and melts off of you to spill and drip away between her fingers. And as suddenly as it started, it ends.

* * *

The hands that find you are the first sensations that remind you back to your body. The phantom of fingertips turned to real ones that meet your limp form. You feel yourself slowly, cautiously lifted from the tank. All you hear is the excited, joyous rumble of their whispered words to each other, as they fish out the latest piece of themselves. The only thought that forms is a wonder at when the tank opened. The lucids ensure you do not slip, encourage your hands to the rails, though you stumble, legs hardly enough to hold you up. They watch and hold so as to keep you from the catch of any raw metallic edge, any hurt that you wouldn’t even notice through the shock.  
  
The liquid drips pretty pearls off of you that catch the stark red light as they slip away, glittering as they fall from your bare skin. Steam rises from you in whorls that spin and drift lazily. It’s freezing, you feel most keenly of all, and all you can do is try to hide in your hunched shoulders while your arms cross over your chest. Your steps come slowly, encouraged by hands that pull with soft but eager grip.  
They form a tunnel of bodies, a path for you, walls lined with encouraging touch and soft words of congratulation that you mumble back, smile weak but too genuine to contain. Your focus is on the fire. It’s blinding, after the deep dark of the tank, absolutely blazing, well fed. The flames leaping, dancing, moving just like those figures you left in the darkness. Warm, orange, and welcoming, with every meager step towards it, even with your eyes pinched almost shut, you feel safer.  
At the edge of the pit, you stare into the heart of the flames and find no trace of the tiny carved figurine. But you can uncurl your arms here, lower your shoulders and bare your cold, wet skin to the heat. The dizziness lingering in your head stays stable but you stand still, just in case.  
There are no clocks down here. All you know is the fire dries your skin dutifully as you turn and allow it to. Until finally, the bite of the cold that lives here is almost distant. It makes you feel like you’re glowing, still smiling gently. The others watch silently, keeping careful eyes on your chest as you learn to breathe again, careful eyes on the shake slowly, slowly fading from your limbs. Sometimes the process is too much, so additional care and caution is always needed. It wouldn't do to spoil the night with a concussion.  
  
But you don’t faint, don’t collapse or stagger over yet. That mist lingers in your head but you can stand well enough as the fire dies down slowly, firewood burning to charcoal and ashes plenty, until only a soft nest of cinders remains. When they are sure you can stand fine, you feel a blanket meeting you. It’s not exactly soft, but you lean into the gesture and take it gratefully with shaky fingers, wrapping yourself, ending up bundled.  
Snug and insulated, you find yourself at a loss for understanding as hushed gasps escape all of them, swallowed down as quickly as possible. Your first thought is they’re gasping at you- but no, their bodies are a mass with each face turned sharply away. You can’t see through the crowd. But your curiosity is strong. You push forward while they part like a school of fish, receding in a fluid motion and then pouring into the hollow where you were. One reaches for your shoulder, reconsiders, and withdraws a hand that curls in uncertainty.  
  
Your eyes are met by two mirages standing at the far end of the platform. Two figures robed in heat waves that dance and blur not just their faces, but their entire bodies. No amount of focusing stops the flickering between features and tones, so subtle you hardly register a trait or edge of their form before another peeks out and takes the forefront. It’s difficult to tell where in the middle they meet. You can hear the group behind you fall to their knees, suddenly all brought back to their senses.  
It’s no surprise they were here. They always are for the procedures, the most important part. But their decision to appear has the lucids wrinkling their stiffly ironed uniforms between tightly clenched fists. Usually they’d stay well within the shadows, resting from a seat for two, leading the process by speaking the chant.  
No one says a word, no one wanting to question them. If you had any sense, you too would go to your knees. The haze has your fear dulled, so what you do instead is step forward, hands still clasping close the blanket that trails behind you. The others on their knees pray maybe, just maybe, that reasoning will save you.  
But fear is the furthest thing from your mind. You stand dazed and not knowing any better, you reach out fingers to test the illusion. No one breathes. The illusion of their fingers and palms flutters as a flock’s worth of wings as one of their hands catches your wrist before you make contact.  
Their grip is firm and commanding, but not anything close to vice grip handshake painful. They hold it in place for an agonizing moment, then turn your hand, parting and moving to hold it between their bodies, leaning on either side of it. Your eyes close as you feel more of their hands find you, one at your jaw, turning your head and squeezing open your mouth, rolling the angle of your head. One inspecting your other hand, up your arm as far as the blanket will allow. You feel like a racehorse up for auction.  
  
Their eyes scrape down every detail, but their mouths stay deadly silent. All you can think is how pleasant it feels to be warmed by their hands. You coo out an accidental noise as fingers trail over you. That sharp gaze is simply too dulled by your drugged mind. It feels like the gentle, suggestive tip of a knife flirting against you. They pause, hearing you. Both heads start to turn, moving with a slow scan until their attention rests on your face. They see plainly your drowsy, half lidded eyes, the way your head droops ever so slightly. Whatever they’re thinking is a mystery to you. They release you from their hold and turn away, pace relaxed.  
  
“Follow us.”  
  
The statement echoes in the room, their voices blending. Grasping your blanket, you follow dutifully, sparing a glance back to the crowd that stewarded your rebirth. The anxious clench of their hands escapes you, a detail too minute to see so far away. No one has time to tell you this is unusual.  
  
Through twisting caverns you follow the vapor trails of the Voice, until finally you reach a red door. You’ve passed several already, for reasons you’ll never know. They are gentle but impatient, allow you no lingering touch and wonder at the red paint, the eye displayed boldly. You hardly have enough time to take in the wider room before it’s opened, and red blares into the air.  
  
  
Your first lucid step over the threshold is a trial. Memories and experiences are stored physically, developed pathways between neurons trained into tiny but meaningful shapes. Your body vanishes and your mind is submerged in a thousand memories, emotions, sensations, all flooding through those pathways, square blocks in round holes. There’s no refusing this, only getting swept away by the currents of Song.  
  
And then you’re on a floor, spilled out like a gutted bag of rice. It takes you a second to realize that you’re experiencing your own present and not memories anymore, because the sound of birdsong isn’t something you’d ever expect down here. You look up, and feel a gentle sense of wonder creep over you. This is still some part of the maze. But this space looks so much softer than the rest of it. Endlessly long sheets of white hang from the roof of the room, run the length of it and cover the walls, tacked down in a huge grid that makes it look almost upholstered.  
  
They are composed and waiting. While their stance suggests no urgency, the way they loom makes you as anxious as you can be, now. You rise as quickly, pushing yourself from the dust of the floor and rise. And surprisingly, their hands reach to help when you wobble, clicking their tongues in weird stereo.  
  
“A bruise, perhaps? Fret not. It shall fade.” they say together, and the way one of their hands slides over the dully aching shoulder you landed on makes your fingers twitch in surprise. Of course they can see the confusion on your face. Why would the illusion work on them? But you can’t help it. As their hand draws back, they step forward together and their illusion merges again. You only stare, adjusting the blanket you’re huddled into, while they walk in perfect sync further into the passage.  
  
Covering the maybe-bruise on your shoulder is an afterthought, but you can’t help but shrug the blanket up over it as you follow. The sound of birds echoes, though muffled slightly by the hanging fabric. You realize it’s not just chirping, but the sound of wings, of tiny feet landing and skittering. As you turn a corner, you see a cage set into one of the walls, so large it reaches down to the floor. By where the Voice stands already gazing within, a pair of boots sits. One of their bodies turns to consider you as well.  
  
And then gestures you over, steps back as you approach to allow you a view from the very front of the cage, both of them behind you. Up close, you see an entire caged off room, the door itself made of tiny bars that you look past. As you feel their hands rest on your shoulders, you count at least half a dozen tiny, colorful birds. There’s nothing but space down here, but you’d never have guessed something like this. Behind the bars, the room is full of plants real and artificial, some curling at sharp right angles of thick, green wood planks. You see obvious perches, a scattering of woven straw toys, water that gurgles from a wall into a small basin, and plentiful food dishes. A sleeper tends to something within, back turned to you, socks so much softer in the cage than their usual thumping gait.  
  
You watch the birds hop and glide, almost all of them a mix of pure red and pure white.  
  
“Do you hold a familia || rity with what these are?” the Voice asks, but before you can answer, they’re speaking softly again, so close it makes the hairs on your neck raise as you feel their breath on you.  
  
“Before Redacre was founded… Reclaimed… The laborers of your kind would breed them for the purpose of bringing them deep into the mountains they mined. They are canaries. Their plumage is hardly impressive || and they harbor an unexpected brutality, slaughtering each other if kept too close, or in the wrong season... But they are useful in unexpected ways, in their fragility.”  
  
You stare, as a tiny bit of downy fluff glides slowly to the floor.  
  
“In the depths of the passages, when an unnoticed pocket or leak of poisonous vapors was entered, the birds would || perish far before the men. Tragic, precious things. But their sacrifice was vital.”  
  
The Voice’s words end and you stand still, entranced watching the hop and skip skitter of their energy, red feathers so bold in the landscape of white and dull greens. You could stay and listen forever, watching them. But the silence grows, and you are content to move when the Voice guides you away, another of their hands finding your forearm to turn you, holding as they walk away with you.  
  
This time you pass through a doorway that heavy fabric drapes over, smothering as it crumples to the floor. It clings to their arms as they push it away to pass, and you enter after. This chamber is darker, and the birdsong hardly makes it past the curtain. Still, it lingers in your mind. The elucidation chamber was only minutes ago, despite the red door shifting your sense of time, and its vapors haven’t let you go yet. So you speak out of place.  
  
“Why do you… We? Why do we keep them here, now?” you ask, words difficult to line up. One body looks back at you for a moment, pauses their steps so you pass, walking between them. The three of you move further into the room before they answer, giving you time to take in the space. Orange light glows from somewhere implacable, leaving deep shadows across what it does not touch, illuminating the room to show a raised dais, also seemingly draped in fabric.  
  
The body ahead sits on it, hands grasping the edges for balance and moving slowly as they do. By the way the bedding gives as they sit, it looks quite soft. The one behind you speaks first, petting your shoulder down to your side. You can’t turn around to face that one, but you glance down at the illusory hand resting against the blanket at your waist, as they speak.  
  
“They serve the same purpose now as then. Your kind thinks it was so, so long ago, that they’ve found such better, elegant means… But delicate machinery spoils from the damp, here, falls languid and sits as detritus. And they are beautiful, lovely creatures… But they are only canaries.”  
  
You can’t help the tiny ache in your chest, and the one seated before you catches the way your face changes as you think of the cage again, this time envisioning its inhabitants laying still, as cold as the stone beneath them.  
  
“Come now, dear. There are other matters to attend.” they say, raising a hand to your cheek, turning your face forward to them. The hand lingers, thumb rubbing tenderly at your cheekbone as your heartbeat quickens, and any thoughts of birds dead or alive are gone in an instant. Before you, they sit with ankles crossed and their back straight, their other hand resting at their lap. They sit, but of course they command. Watching those features swim, your heart pounds so hard you almost go to your shivering knees. Their head tilts as they lean closer, Other hand resting on their lap. They appreciate the effect they’re having.  
  
“There. Now it is time to let us see you.” they say together. Despite everything you’ve given them, you clutch the blanket tighter on impulse. You want to give everything. You’ve already given so much. But this… Why would they want this? Your nervous glance slips away from their face, down at the fabric hiding your body. A creeping avalanche of dread rises in your stomach. You’ve never felt _this_ was enough to give. The blanket is a meager thing to hide within, and the fact that it kept you shapeless and covered was more comfort than any cold it kept at bay.  
  
“There... “ your eyes shut, as you try to speak. Maybe it will be easier this way. Closing your eyes is deeply ingrained in your reflexes now, after all.  
“There are others… Better suited. I’m not… Not…” you manage a few more clumsy words, but finishing the thought is too difficult. A million words fill in the blank in your mind, as you struggle to get it out. Not… You know the core of it, what twists cruelly in your guts. Not good enough. Not you, not this flesh. Not smooth to the touch, with your hairs and moles and bumps and dry patches, with scars and stretch marks and skin tags, the ways you’re ever so slightly uneven. You lean into the hand at your cheek for comfort, even though you know you don’t deserve it.  
Their patience for this only lasts for so long.  
  
“Hush now. This is no place for foolish thoughts and poisonous ego.” they utter, but their hands stay so gentle it doesn’t feel like a reprimand. It doesn’t help your nerves much, even so. They click their tongues again, though behind those illusions sit pleased smiles. You need more assurance, they know.  
  
“We are one, now. You are us. And truly, you wouldn’t dare hate us?” they speak, the words making you shiver. Almost before you understand what you’ve heard, you shake your head no, brow twisting, eyes parting as they start to prickle with tears. You didn’t mean it like that, of course you didn’t. And you can’t help but try to explain.  
  
“No, no, Of course not, I’m-” a finger meets your lips, hushing you, stopping your words. In a blink, it slips away and they seal your silence with a kiss. The scent of fresh laundry overwhelms you as adrenaline floods you, despite the softness of the touch. Craning upwards, they pull you into the kiss with the hand that eases from cheek to the back of your head. Your heart stops and the hands at your waist are the only thing that stops you from falling over.  
As your eyes close again, your fingers relax from their vice grip on the blanket. It shrugs a little away down, but you don’t even think about it. You ache to slip your hands over theirs, or to reach and hold their head the same way… But no, you could never, so you rest your fingers gently at their forearms, sighing out as the kiss ends. They stay nuzzled close, forehead against yours, as you finally kneel for them.  
The sound of the blanket crumpling against the floor hardly reaches you, but you take a sharp breath in, feeling idle fingertips trace over your mid back, up your exposed spine.  
  
“We love every part of ourselves.” they say together. The one is so close, their lips brush yours as they talk. You give a tiny, gentle nod. You understand. _Every part_. Who are you to try and deny their self love? Your eyes crack a sliver as you feel them pulling back, your fingers trailing against their wrists while they move further onto the bed. Warm, their skin is soft and textured here and there, loose with age. But you know that’s only a strange illusion, as these hosts are young compared to the part that’s truly them. The part that matters. And your own body will change like theirs in the blink of an eye, too.  
  
“And every part loves us.”  
  
Behind you, the other lets their hands linger playful trails across your shoulders, the back of your neck. You shudder and a thread of a whimper escapes your mouth while goosebumps blanket you, tiny electric impulses racing through you. Still standing steadily, they look down on you with an amused chuckle. The few they’ve shown this room are always so desperate.  
And then comes the gentle sound of a hand patting the fabric, calling you to the center of the bed. This must be some dream, to be allowed to climb aside this body, here. Your eyes drag longingly over them, an abstract ink cloud, a rippling impression of a human body. It feels strange, to let your hands pull yourself back up, to lift a knee to the hard edge and feel that give of bedding, the sheet soft against your palms and fingertips. All of your balance feels stuck in your head, wobbling as you move. At least this is only a tiny distance, you couldn’t fall and hurt yourself if you tried.  
It’s stranger yet to feel the other follow you as the first holds a hand out to you, lays patiently on their side and encourages you to the center of the bed.  
  
“Good, pet. Keep moving.” the one behind you says, and you tense as their palm glides up the side of you, from your thigh to your ribs. Their hand has a roughness here and there, subtly carried in the few calluses that skirt up you. But it feels electric to be touched, to be wanted. You sigh out and slide into place just as they want you, until you’re laid with your back down on the spot the other called you to. Alongside the first, they lay to your right, and you marvel quietly at the many places your body makes contact with theirs.  
Their hand reaches across your sternum to rest over your heart, and you gasp.  
  
“Yes. Return to us now. Just as you were always meant to” they say, and it’s difficult to tell if one or both of them spoke. Your head is full of soft, fluttering haze and you really don’t care.  
The body that follows adjusts into place at your left, until you’re pressed on both sides by them. The chill in the air feels nice now, basking in their body heat. You close your eyes and breathe, snug and content to stay there forever. Your eyes stay closed until the hand lifts from your sternum and you peek to see them both reaching above and across you to undo each others’ clothes. What they’re wearing, you can’t tell. The blur is white, sometimes red. Their fingers are swift, coordinated, and your mind lingers on the wish that they had asked you to open their buttons instead.  
You don’t try to get a good look as they slip those clothes off, over the edge to the floor. When they lay back down, the skin to skin to skin blend of the trio of you is so natural and right, peaceful bliss overtakes you. Languid, their arms and legs easily drape over you, familiar in the way that only a being that has been doing this for thousands of years would know. They don’t stay still, though. Your arms are lifted, adjusted till they’re raised over your head. Their hands meet your skin then, making your breath quicken as they caress and pet every part of that you hated, every part your fear tried to hide from them.  
You’ve had lovers before, people that meant a great deal to you, people you loved, relationships you mourned. But none that you fully surrendered to. None that could truly peer into your core, reach within and reshape you into something perfect.  
  
As you breathe heavy and grip the sheets from their touch, their wandering hands synchronize and raise to your mouth, fingers meeting your lips. Through your gasps you open your mouth to the slight pressure, four fingers spreading your lips as the shock makes your stomach flip.  
Your tongue is soft, your mouth welcoming, obedient and submissive to their intrusion. You try to show them you need it in the way you suck gently and play with them, allowing them to rub and swirl little circles against your tongue. Desperate is the word, but they speak a much older language anyway. Your eyes crack as you feel a thumb rub at your cheek again, looking at one of their faces. Your face burns hot for the way you flush under their attention, and they feel full well your desperation as you suck, careful to be gentle with them.  
Their fingers withdraw, followed by your whimpers. Your eyes pinch shut again as you bite your lip, still feeling the tickle of fingertips on your tongue. But you don’t hold the bite long, lips parting as you stutter a breath in. You feel their hands at your thighs. They are so deliberate, they try to ease them open gently. But they laugh together as you spread your legs eagerly, so very, very fast.  
  
“What good behavior, how very precious… Patience, pet.” they say gently, and you feel kisses at your face. As you turn to face one in a kiss, those slick fingers find the heat and softness between your legs. Your eyes go wide and you forget how to breathe. They tease you, lingering just at the cusp, daring a little game of pressure that you try to press against, whimpering when they withdraw. And then they return, rubbing, pressing just barely not enough. It’s a cycle they seem happy to draw out, until you can’t just lay passive and whimper anymore.  
  
“Please.” you beg through your heavy breaths, “Please, please, I’ll… You… I am yours, please,” you beg, shuddering, trying to press yourself onto their fingers. You can’t offer them more than you’ve given them, and they know this. They share another chuckle, and go silent in what you pray is consideration while they continue to tease. The silence shatters when they indulge your plea and finally push inside; your back arches and your toes curl while your moan drowns out the birdsong. They start with only two fingers pressing in at once, alternating hands. Left, right, warming you up so slowly it’s almost another tease. You murmur as you feel the wet trails they leave across your skin, moving in time so perfectly they’re like a machine as they slip into you, out of you.  
When they judge it the right moment, you feel the stretch of all four fingers spread you. Your moans, if we can call them that, aren’t pretty. They’re from deep within, varied groans and gasps, grunting and panting, honest noises that you can’t help or control, Not the mimic porno sounds you’ve trained yourself into over the years for other lovers, moans as light and high as you could manage, always so afraid of sounding "wrong".  
  
They play you easily, lips curled into smiles that bare their teeth, to hear you come alive for them. Their fingers overwhelm you as you ride them, legs wide as you can manage, hips desperate to meet their motions and body desperate for the attention.  
  
“Yes. Let go. || Let us in.” they whisper with voices strained, and you start to feel far more sensations, hands playing across your body. There linger suggestions of fingertips at your lips again, palms that fan over your chest and brush your nipples, and strong tender strokes that work the sensitive outside as your inside gets fucked by their fingers. Your fluttering gaze searches in desperate confusion, but shows you no extra hands, no sleepwalkers quietly summoned. This is in your head. _They’re_ in your head, playing with nerve endings from even deeper than you’d begged them to go. Your body has trouble keeping up with so much sensation, but you’re far too lost in the pleasure to worry about the way you quake between them.  
You notice their own breath shifting, and with a moment of wonder, you realize they feel it too. Through you. The one on the left presses their lips to your earlobe, takes it between their teeth and drags out a soft bite as you shudder. Trailing, harsh bites follow after, as their breath comes urgently, heavy and deep. The other at your right matches that urgency, though their breath is far more controlled, and they bury their face into the crook of your maybe-bruised shoulder, giving tiny, gentle kisses as they shudder through the sensations.  
You feel your hips tilt, pressing towards the sensation they’re wrestling into you, an urgent, desperate impulse growing by the second. You smile and laugh breathlessly at how foolish your hesitancy was, how worthless the fear was that held you back.  
  
_Stretch marks.  
  
Body hair._  
  
As if they were not living in human shells too. As if anything like them would care about a mole.  
  
Your noises grow louder while you tongue at the phantom fingers in your mouth, shivering harder and harder, shuddering. Your body shakes as your eyelids flutter, and their bodies twitch and shiver with you as your eyes roll up into darkness. In the dark, the inevitable and absolute break of the dam finds you.  
  
The noises you make are horrific, but your body and mind are waterboarded into ecstasy. A hurricane of butterflies tips itself over in your stomach and churns furiously as your face flushes with that same heat from earlier. You cry to feel the burn of the sun breaking over the bridge of your nose again, tears slipping down your cheeks as the heat overtakes your body. The Voice feels it all echoing from the walls, through you.  
But they don’t stop, the sight of your breaking at their hand too thrilling to witness, to experience. Their fingers claim you even as your muscles tense and spasm around them, the hot friction of their fingerprints charging you with a shock that carries and carries and carries. You clench your jaw and gasp out, hands drawn to fists wrapped in the sheets above your head.  
You’re clay, soft by the warmth of their hands, brought to life with every touch they gift you, singing a private song only they will ever hear. With each motion of their fingers, you worship by surrendering yourself, by being a living conduit for the pleasure they feel through you.  
These are the bodies of the sleeping god that you belong to, spending precious time at each thrust within, each rub and every point of contact electric, specifically to illustrate how fully and deeply you’re theirs.  
So you sing as they play you, you sing all your love out until your throat is raw and your body is exhausted, until finally, they are satisfied.  
  
  
Each time you blink, it seems a year has passed. You lay in place, staring at the ceiling. Fingers finally withdrawn, they lay by you equally worn, seemingly content to share body heat and rest. Your chest rises and falls softly, as finally you’ve caught your breath. The night’s memories feel like a dream of a dream. Dully, you realize you’ll never dream again.  
You blink.  
  
They are talking, standing at the edge of the bed. Are they dressed again? You cannot tell, orange glow behind turning them into a quivering, two headed silhouette.  
“Perhaps we should have been gentler.” one ponders, but the other shakes their head, and you can hear the smile in their voice as they grab one of your knees and spread your legs.  
“Gentler? Nonsense. Look at this pretty mess they’ve made. They adored it.”  
You give a delirious nod in response, whispering “Yes.” though your voice is hoarse. A warm cloth pats at the spill of your body, cleaning you. It is gentle, and you murmur a quiet thank you.  
You blink.  
  
“Drink this.” their voice is louder, closer. You sit at the edge of the bed, holding a ceramic vessel to your lips with both hands. The spring water tastes of nothing but soothing cold, and you accept it hungrily at their command. Drained, it lowers to your lap as you take in the sight of them, standing before you.  
“You’re perfect.” you murmur, all your exhausted mind can think to say. Behind the slurry of eyes and mouths, they smile. They know, and they don’t bother correct you to words to _we_.  
“Never forget this night.” they tell you, and you slip to your knees and set the vessel aside, kneeling at their boots, one last display of loyalty they can’t help but drink up.  
  
You never will.

**Author's Note:**

> Amazingly, no dead doves to be found. I'm shocked too.


End file.
